Ballhawks: Foul Ball?
When Florida Marlins rookie Chris Coghlan hit his first major league home run this season, the ball was caught by a fan—and caught in a standoff between ballpark rights and doing the right thing.
After his victory lap, Coghlan requested that the milestone ball be returned for sentimental reasons. “I wanted to get it and give it to my mom,” he said. But the fan countered, “What’s the ball worth to you?”
The fan, 30 year-old Nick Yohanek, was legally entitled to keep the ball, but as a professional “ballhawk,” his stance was criticized all the way from the local Palm Beach Post to the Wall Street Journal, which described the business of ballhawks as “grabbing any ball that goes in the stands, especially milestone home runs like a player’s first or 500th. Most then refuse to give them back to the player unless he coughs up something valuable in return, from a signed bat or jersey to up to $10,000.”
A fan who caught and kept Ken Griffey’s 600th home run ball last year auctioned it for $42,000. And the man who refused to hand over Mark McGwire’s 70th homerun ball during the 1998 season later sold it for $3 million.
Negotiations to free Chris Coghlan’s treasured piece of memorabilia soon involved the Marlins manager, coach, media relations head, and team psychologist, and focused on free tickets to future Marlins games, a photo op, a signed ball, and two signed bats, one which Yohanek wanted inscribed, “To Nick, thanks for catching my first home run!”
Coghlan eventually got his ball back. “He wasn’t the most polite or respectful guy about the whole process,” Coghlan said, likening the ballhawk’s actions to holding balls “for ransom.”
Yohanek disagreed. “It’s my hobby, people,” he wrote on his blog, along with this summation. “QUESTION: Is it okay to catch a historic milestone home run and sell it at auction for $1 million dollars? ANSWER: If that’s what it’s worth to someone, hell yeah it’s okay.”
Tell us what you think: Ballhawking is legal, so does it matter if it’s responsible or not? Does baseball need new rules for fans?
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Community Organizer
As a baseball fan and former (wannabe professional) I think the milestone balls should be treated the same as a players salary, negotiable. If players can hold fans, low-income concession employees, cleanup crews and the like ‘hostage’ , while they ‘whine’ about (millions) what the games is worth to them, with little regard for those who make this game profitable, then with the money that they are paid he should not have a problem understanding why people (ball hawks) are in the business. He was asked a fair question ‘what’s it worth to you’. Which is exactly what the players ask the owners. ‘Fair exchange is not robbery’, which is why it’s legal. If baseballs starts to place restrictions on the fans – then why should we go. The restrictions should have been placed on the salaries of the players – it’s rediculous.
Kha-Mis Kanunname | 4 months ago
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liznandy
As Shakespeare so skillfully entitled his play Much (A)dough About Nothing!
Liz Kruidenier | 4 months ago
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Would Coghlan want the ball if it fouled?
Sorry to say but I agree with most. If you look at the big picture, The fans pay for the players salaries. It’s simple, No fans…No salaries. We go to the games just as Yohanek did/does, mit in hand hoping to catch one of those balls. (I’m sure like EVERY FAN out there does). Luckly for Yohand he caught one. Just happened to be the first HR Coghlan hit. Would he have cared as much if it were a foul or his 3rd HR? I don’t think so. The ball players are there putting on a show for us, the fans. They are largly paid for that show. They should not be entitled to anything else. If he wanted the ball be should have pay for it. Lets be honest, I would have held on to it, I’m sure as many of you would have also.
Amy | 4 months ago
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Fan's ball - players whining
The fan caught the ball. It’s his. The player, as usual, is whining.
These millionaire players get thousands for their autographs and sell everything branded as do the teams.
It’s big business and the fans who catch balls have as much right to profit as the players do.
15 years ago when the players went out on strike, they called the replacement players, “Scabs”, which is why I don’t watch baseball much.
When this rookie player donates half of his salary to charity and spends time being a “Big Brother” to some fatherless boy, I’ll listen to sentimental reasons to give him his ball back.
Stephen goldstein | 4 months ago
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Attorney
i think the players and the management of baseball, and other sports, need to reflect deeply on the question of why today a handshake or the opportunity to meet the player is not enough for the fans. The truth is that the teams are greedy and avaricious, often putting an inferior product on the field, and charging exhorbitant prices for admission and for refreshments. At the same time, the players have grown wealthy, spoiled, selfish, and arrogant, in a world in which most people have to worry about waking up to no job or being fired becasue of the economy, with little comunity service and outreach to kids and to the community generally. The players should be made to realize that the fans are entitled to benefit from the same economic system that has made even mediocre players extremely wealthy. The fan catches the ball and it becomes his or her property. If the player or anyone else wants that person’s property, they must pay what the market will bear to acquire it. Coghlan needs to reflect on the fact that he is not that special if he is 30 and just hitting his first major league home run. Welcome to the other side of our eceonomic system, Mr. Coghlan
Raymond Dean Jones | 4 months ago
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Yes,it is OK
What makes items from one player in ANY sports venue worth more than another?
Or better yet, what is something worth? A very broad, general question, but the answer is the same. “Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay”. I have been in the sports memorabilia and cards for years. There are many autographed rookie cards that are WAY more expensive than autographed cards of Nolan Ryan or Cal Ripken Jr. Why does it cost WAY more to see a game in New York than it does in Kansas City?
It is good that the Marlins orgazination backed him up in retrieving the ball. How much does an average fan make compared to a MLB,NFL, NBA player make? The sentimental value is about equal to the hitter and the catcher. Does the player deserve it more because he is a player? NO
The ball was given up for what the current owner thought it was worth and the new owner was willing to pay.
In my personal opinion it is whinning on the MLB players part. You want it-pay for it.
the tinkerman | 4 months ago
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Gimme a break!
All professional athletes make more money in a year doing what most of us loved to do with our free time than the rest of us will make in our lives breaking our backs at various jobs. Most working class people can’t even afford to go to a game at several hundred dollars a seat. The fans have paid for any balls they catch, milestone or not. The athletes should not be so greedy as to whine about having to spend a little of their oh so very “hard earned money”. The money a fan gets for a milestone ball could change their life, it could pay off their house, or education for their children. A lucky fan could afford to go on a vacation and have the privelage to see places and cultures they never would have before catching and selling a milestone ball. The professional athletes make way too much money for what they do and they should feel honored to have fans that spend their hard earned money to go watch their games and catch their stupid balls. The athletes should be thinking “ I make 8 million a year to play baseball and I just made 3 million on a commecial that took an hour to shoot, while this fan that just caught my homerun ball works in a factory for 15 dollars an hour, wouldn’t it be nice if I could make his life a little easier and I could have my stupid little ball to put on my mantle” The balls belong to the fans point blank, if the gazillionaire athletes, team owners, or coaches want the balls that bad then they can spend some of their “hard earned money”.
Bronson | 4 months ago
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ball hawking
I grew up next to a ball park in Northern Minnesota where lots of balls came over the left field fence. We had a choice of keeping the balls we or anyone else recovered or selling them back to the people who managed the ball park. The point is we had a choice. No one ever forced us to give them back, or told us what we could do with them after.
I don’t ever remember buying a ball in a store because we would always keep one or two to play with ourselves. Every kid in the neighborhood had a ball or two and would pick up broken bats, repair them and use them ourselves.
I personally have a problem with ball hawks because their aggressive behavior in going after balls has put more than one spectator at risk when the ball is especially important. It’s a person’s right to do whatever they want with the ball, but I question the morality of holding them for ransom.
George Parmeter | 4 months ago
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Ballhawks: Foul Ball?
IMHO..I believe we, the fans, pay enough for our seats..yes, I believe you should be able to keep a ball that has been hit into the stands. I also believe if the batter wants it for sentimental reasons, maybe he could exchange another one with the fan..but all in all yes the fan has the rights to it, so the players should suck it up and be a man about it.
Bonnie J. Howell | 4 months ago
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single mother of 4
what happen to the love of the game and good sportsmanship please tell me come on people i mean its not like it is gonna kill you! your not the one who hit the ball you just caught it !
jessica | 3 months, 1 week ago
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